Method and Apparatus for Database-Assisted Requalification Reticle Inspection

1. A method comprising: providing design data for a reticle that specify cell-to-cell regions containing repeating patterns or structures in the reticle and reticle dimension descriptions having a particular resolution, wherein the reticle design data is usable to fabricate the reticle; generating, from the cell-to-cell regions, cell-to-cell region descriptions for only the identical regions of the cell-to-cell regions and generating, from the reticle dimension descriptions, a grayscale image of the reticle that has a lower resolution than the particular resolution of the dimension descriptions of the reticle; generating a design database that includes the generated cell-to-cell region descriptions and the grayscale image of the reticle; compressing and encrypting the design database to produce a reduced design database; and using the reduced design database to inspect the reticle by scanning a beam across the reticle in an inspection tool and thereby acquiring an image of the reticle with a sensor of the inspection tool.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reduced design database for the reticle has a size less than 200 gigabytes.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reticle design data further includes non-printable features of the reticle that are to not be printed on a wafer that is fabricated using the reticle that is formed from such reticle design data.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising generating a description or map of the nonprintable features of the reticle by defining each feature of the grayscale reticle image that has a measured line width below a predefined threshold as a nonprintable feature if such feature is within a predefined distance to another feature of the grayscale reticle image that has a measured line width equal or above the predefined threshold value.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the description or map of the nonprintable features specifies a size and location for each nonprintable feature or region of nonprintable features.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the generated design database further includes a map of the nonprintable features in the form of a plurality of polygons having a color that differs from a plurality of design polygons specified in the reticle design data.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reticle design data further includes proprietary information and the reduced design database does not include such proprietary information.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cell-to-cell region descriptions are generated by detecting repeating patterns in the grayscale reticle image.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the cell-to-cell region descriptions specify a size and location for each of the detected repeating patterns or each region of the detected repeating patterns.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating nonprintable features of the reticle design data by an algorithm that causes asymmetries in some repeating ones of the printable features of the reticle design data.

11. A system comprising at least one processor and at least one memory that are configured for performing the following operations: receiving design data for a reticle that specify cell-to-cell regions containing repeating patterns or structures in the reticle and reticle dimension descriptions having a particular resolution, wherein the reticle design data is usable to fabricate the reticle; generating, from the cell-to-cell regions, cell-to-cell region descriptions for only the identical regions of the cell-to-cell regions and generating, from the reticle dimension descriptions, a grayscale image of the reticle that has a lower resolution than the particular resolution of the dimension descriptions of the reticle; generating a design database that includes the generated cell-to-cell region descriptions and the grayscale image of the reticle; compressing and encrypting the design database to produce a reduced design database; and using the reduced design database to inspect the reticle by scanning a beam across the reticle in an inspection tool and thereby acquiring an image of the reticle with a sensor of the inspection tool.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the reticle design data further includes non-printable features of the reticle that are to not be printed on a wafer that is fabricated using the reticle that is formed from such reticle design data.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the at least one processor and at least one memory are further configured for generating a description or map of the nonprintable features of the reticle by defining each feature of the grayscale reticle image that has a measured line width below a predefined threshold as a nonprintable feature if such feature is within a predefined distance to another feature of the grayscale reticle image that has a measured line width equal or above the predefined threshold value.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the description or map of the nonprintable features specifies a size and location for each nonprintable feature or region of nonprintable features.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the generated design database further includes a map of the nonprintable features in the form of a plurality of polygons having a color that differs from a plurality of design polygons specified in the reticle design data.

16. The system of claim 12 , wherein the nonprintable features of the reticle design data are generated by an algorithm that causes asymmetries in some repeating ones of the printable features of the reticle design data.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the reticle design data further includes proprietary information and the reduced design database does not include such proprietary information.

18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the cell-to-cell region descriptions are generated by detecting repeating patterns in the grayscale reticle image.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the cell-to-cell region descriptions specify a size and location for each of the detected repeating patterns or each region of the detected repeating patterns.

20. A system comprising: the system of claim 11 ; and a defect processing system for detecting defects in the reticle by analyzing the acquired image of such reticle based on the reduced design database.

21. The system of claim 20 , wherein the defect processing system is further configured to detect defects by analyzing a test image of the reticle using a plurality of different inspection algorithms, wherein a first sensitivity level of a first one of the inspection algorithms is less in first areas of the test image defined by a portion of the reduced design database than a second sensitivity level of a second one of the inspection algorithms for other areas of the test image that are not defined by the reduced design database.

22. The system of claim 21 , wherein the analysis of the test image is accomplished by comparing the image to a reference image that corresponds to a portion of the grayscale reticle image.

23. The system of claim 21 , wherein the analysis of the image is accomplished by comparing the test image to a reference image obtained from a reference die or reference cell of the reticle.

24. The system of claim 21 , wherein the first sensitivity level is selected based on a description or map of the nonprintable features of the reticle.

25. The system of claim 21 , wherein the second sensitivity level is selected based a description or map of a plurality of cell-to-cell regions of the reticle.